US Presidential Election: Obama lays out an astoundingly ambitious second-term agenda

President Barack Obama laid out an astoundingly ambitious second-term agenda in an interview published Wednesday, vowing to forge a "grand bargain" with Republicans to reduce the national debt and achieve comprehensive immigration reform — all in 2013.

"It will probably be messy. It won't be pleasant," Obama told the Des Moines Register's publisher and its editor by telephone. The daily made the exchange public after the White House dropped its insistence that it be off-the-record.

Messy? Unpleasant? Well, yes. Even if Obama wins reelection -- hardly a done deal -- few if any analysts expect the Democrats to retake the House of Representatives. And while the Democrats are forecast to hold on to the Senate, betting that the president's party will secure a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority is a fool's game — at least according to the latest polls. That makes these promises reliant on Obama using the "bully pulpit" of the White House more effectively than he has since taking office January 2009.

Read more: Obama vows debt-cutting ‘grand bargain,’ immigration reform in 2013 in Des Moines Register interview | The Ticket - Yahoo! News